Your business is growing, it’s been your ideas, your hard work, and your values that have got it there. But now you have a new challenge. You need to employ people to help you deliver that vision, it could be five, ten, or even fifty people by now. And that’s tricky because you need to ensure those people buy into what you do and how you do it (that’s what we HR people call engagement). So, when is the right time to call HR and work with someone with HR expertise? You could wait for your first people problems to appear; a bad hire, a performance problem, a disciplinary issue, or even a tricky dismissal. That’s certainly a good time to get HR advice but it shouldn’t be the first time.

Building a people plan as part of your business growth plans would not only allow you to anticipate and hopefully avoid these problems, it would also help you be clear on how people can add value to your business. Here are three good reasons for bringing a strategic HR view into your business sooner rather than later. Getting hiring right: There’s nothing more important than bringing the right people into your business. That means being clear on not just the skills you need but also the right behaviours and how to assess these. Then there is the issue of how you promote your business to attract the right candidates and your employee value proposition.

Connecting your people to your business goals: What you do is important to you, but how can you get your employees to buy into that? This is about ensuring your people understand how their day-to-day work makes a difference and giving them feedback on how they are doing. A good start is to introduce a simple, fit-for-purpose appraisal process. Developing your people: As your business grows you will need your people to grow with it, so what is your approach to development planning? What’s more, a good development offer will also aid retention and that’s another problem solved. So who you gonna call? Well actually it’s HR, not Ghostbusters…Put in the call early, HR is your growth partner.

At Hood People Solutions Ltd and the Resourceful People Group Ltd our passion is helping businesses grow through great people management practices.